Who the dickens is your third cousin once removed?
your great-grandaunt? your sibling?
your cousin-german? What exactly is a half-sister,
a step-brother? If a child has the same name as his father, can you
correctly call him "the second" if you dont like
"junior"? Is there a difference between a genealogy and a family history? Now that the
search for "roots" is a national pastime, these questions are plaguing more and
more people. Of course, many of the terms used to express family relationships are
well-known and used dully: father, grandmother, uncle, sister and so on. But let us take a
look at some of the lesser used terms.

SIBLINGS: Siblings are the children of the same
parents. It is a convenient term meaning "brothers and sisters". If you have two
brothers and one sister, you have three siblings.

STEP-: If your parents are parted (death, divorce,
ammulment) and one of your parents renames, his/her new spouse then becomes your
stepmother/father. If your stepparent had also been previously married and had had
children by that first marriage, those children now become your stepbrothers/ sisters.
Because they have completely different parents than you, your stepbrothers/sisters are not
related to you "by blood" but are related by "extended family
ties".

HALF-: If your remarried parent and your stepparent
have children, those children are your half brothers/sisters. Because you have one parent
in common, you are partly (half) related "by blood".

IN-LAWS: If your brother or sister gets married,
his/her new spouse becomes your sister-in-law or brother-in-law, but the family of your
new sister(brother)-in-law does not become related to you, only in-laws to your newly
married sibling. When you marry, however, you do acquire a whole family of in-laws of your
own. Your new mates family now become your father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister- or
brother-in-law. In-laws, like step-relatives, are not related "by blood" but by
"extended family ties". Note that the term sister- or brother-in-law is used
both for your spouses sibling and for your siblings spouse.

GRANDNIECE/NEPHEW: The children of your
siblings are your nieces and nephews. The children of your nieces/nephews (your
siblings grandchildren) are your grandnieces/nephews, and their children are your
great-grandnieces/nephews. Grand-niecs/nephews are also sometimes called
great-nieces/nephews, and great-grandnieces/nephews are also called
great-great-nieces/nephews.

GRANDAUNT/UNCLE: The siblings of your
parents are your aunts/uncles. The siblings of your grandparents were originally termed
grandaunts/uncles and the siblings of your great-grand parents were
great-grandaunts/uncles. But over the years those terms have gradually been replaced by
the less de-scriptive great-aunt/uncle for grandaunt/uncle and great-great-aunt/uncle for
great-grandaunt/uncle. Because it is more logical, many modern genealogists still prefer
to use the older terms. Either is correct.

COUSINS: The children of siblings are first
cousins. Thus your children are first cousins to both your nieces nephews and your
spouses nieces/nephews. But your nieces nephews and those of your spouse are not
related to each other because their parents are not related. First cousins are also called
full cousins or cousins-german. Children of first cousins are second cousins, and
their children are third cousins and so on down through the generations. But what
is the relationship of your child to your great-grandniece? Or of your great-grandchild to
your grandnephew? Here is where we use the "removes". To understand
"removed", it is important to keep the generations in order.

A simple diagram is an excellent method of doing this.
Let us imagine that John has a son Peter, a grand-daughter Sarah, a great-granddaughter
Ulla and a sister Dora.
Dora has a child Kim, a grandchild Robert and a great-grand-daughter Tabitha.

We can now sketch a diagram to show that relationship. To determine
Peters relationship to Tabitha, look at the diagram. Peter and Kim are first
cousins. Any descendant of Kim is still a first cousin to Peter but each generation
is one "remove". Thus for Peter, Robert is a first cousin one generation
removed, a term usually shortened to "once removed", and Tabitha is then
Peters first cousin twice removed. The same holds for second, third, etc. cousins.
Robert is a second cousin to Sarah so he is a second cousin once removed to Ulla. Once
while working on our family genealogy, I visited an eighth cousin once removed! Now that
is a distant cousin (her great-grandfather and my great grandfather were brothers in the
17th century!). Strangely enough, although our relationship was so very distant, we found
we were kindred spirits sharing many hobbies and pleasures. Our similar interests even
extended to our enjoyment of jigsaw puzzles. When I mentioned I was a "real puzzle
nut", her husband laughed and led me to a closet filled floor to ceiling with puzzles
just like my closet at home 3000 miles away We even had many of the same puzzles.

NAMESAKES: If your name is John Henry Doe and
you name your son John Henry Doe, you then become Senior (Sr.) and your son Junior (Jr.),
not the second (II). If your son John Henry Doe, Jr. names his son (your grandson)
the same, his son then becomes the third", i.e. John Henry Doe III.
However, if you name your son Richard Henry or John Harold, anything but John Henry Doe,
but he still names his son (your grandson) after you, your grandson then becomes John
Henry Doe II. Likewise if your brother Edward Charles Doe names his son after you, that
child (your nephew) would also be John Henry Doe II. A junior" always has the
same name as his father whereas "the second" is not named for his father but
does have the same name as an older relative (grandfather, uncle, cousin, etc.). The
third" is the third descendant in a family with the same name in either direct
or indirect line. In everyday practice, the Sr., Jr., III are often only used when all
parties are living but genealogically it is important to maintain the correct title to
prevent confusion. One of the most peculiar cases I ever came across was in my own family
genealogy. A fore-bearer named Japhet had several children including a son named Japhet.
When his first wife died, he remarried and had another son. His second wife also insisted
on naming her son Japhet after his father. The boys were only about seven years apart in
age. It must have been most confusing ---a father with two sons, Japhet #1 and Japhet #2

GENEALOGY versus FAMILY
HISTORY: Although currently the two terms are frequently used interchangeably, there
is a difference between a genealogy and a family history. A genealogy starts with one
ancestor, most often the original immigrant to the United States, and traces all his
descendants to the present time. If that ancestor arrived on these shores in colonial
times, you can imagine the hundreds and hundreds of descendants he now probably has and
what a mammoth task it must be to find even half of them! A family history starts
with yourself (or your children) and moves back through your two parents, four
grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents, thirtytwo
great-grandparents, etc. spreading out fanlike to discover all the people from whom you
are descended, not just names and dates but preferably information about their lives and
backgrounds. Most genealogy courses offered today concentrate mostly on techniques for a
family history rather than a genealogy. However, many of the methods can be used for both.

MATERNAL/PATERNAL RELATIVES:
In our English language, we do not differentiate between the maternal (mothers) and
paternal (fathers) sides of the family as is done in some languages. While this is
handy for common speech, it can be frustrating to genealogist or family history
researcher. For example, if you found an old family letter which wrote of "my
grandmother returning to her home in Smithtown", you could not be sure whether it
referred to the writers maternal or paternal grandmother. If the letter had been
written in--say Swedish-- the word for "grandmother" would have been either
"mormor" (mothers mother) or "farmor" (fathers mother) and
it would have been clear.

Who the dickens is your third cousin once removed?
Now you know that he/she is your mothers third cousin, that their great-grandparents
were siblings. (To check that answer, look back at the cousin diagram and imagine yourself
as Ullas daughter. Tabitha, your mothers third cousin, is your third cousin
once removed.) Who is your cousin-german, your sibling, your great-grandaunt? Now you can
answer all those questions presented in the opening paragraph. Hopefully the intricate
nomenclature for the many and varied family relationships within a family is now more
comprehendible and will aid you if you are one of the thousands of Americans personalizing
history by searching out their ancestors.